


wheels up

by scintilla10



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: F/F, Five Times, Pilots, space lesbians, they're lesbians harold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-02 07:58:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19437217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintilla10/pseuds/scintilla10
Summary: Five times Maria Rambeau flew with the love of her life.





	wheels up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mammothluv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mammothluv/gifts).



> Content notes in end comment.

Maria was early, as usual. The closet-turned-locker room was empty. She sat on the wooden bench and breathed in, long, slow breaths.

Today she was going to fly.

Today was a good day. A really, really good day.

She took her time getting into her flight suit, savouring the fizzy feeling of anticipation. She could hear her fellow cadets arriving in the adjacent — full-sized — locker room. Only minutes before their call time, Danvers burst into the women's locker room, hair still wet from a shower and smelling like fried food.

A last minute entrance, also as usual.

Danvers had started to pull off her clothes before she even got to her locker, as though that would make up for her late arrival.

“Hi Rambs,” she said, throwing Maria a disarmingly blinding grin. She was pulling on her flight suit with enviable speed.

Maria rolled her eyes, but smiled back. “Hi,” she said.

“We’re flying today,” Danvers added.

Her smiled was infectious, but of course, Maria had been feeling that bubbling anticipation already. There wasn't anything that was as good, that _felt_ as good, as flying. 

Well, other than — 

Maria ground out that line of thought before she could blush.

_We're flying._

Somehow, Danvers' comment seemed private, personalized, directed just to Maria. As though she wanted to share this moment with Maria, specifically.

Maria felt her lips curl into a full-blown grin, and she reached out to clasp Danvers lightly on the shoulder. It was the first time she’d initiated physical contact with Danvers outside of basic training exercises. To be fair, they'd been separated during most of basic training. But keeping a physical distance — that had been for Maria's own self-preservation. 

But they were flying today, and Danvers was smiling at her, and Maria was an Air Force pilot who was no stranger to rapid risk assessment and decision-making.

It was an innocuous gesture, unremarkable among in the physicality of the cadets. But Danvers lit up, and her eyes flew up to meet Maria’s, warm and honey-brown.

Maria pulled back before her risk assessment matrix overloaded.

“Fucking right we’re flying today,” she said, and Danvers laughed.

Maria couldn’t wait to fly next to her.

~~~

“It’s weird not to be doing a pre-flight check,” Carol muttered.

She was tapping the arm of her seat and jiggling her leg. Monica was squirming in the middle seat, so Maria gave her a stick of gum for her ears. The stewardess passed by, closing the overhead bin with a practiced snap.

“Control freak,” Maria said fondly.

Carol raised her eyebrow in the direction of Maria’s knitting. Maria huffed. She didn’t like to admit it, but doing something with her hands helped with the itchiness she felt whenever she flew commercial.

Pilots were bad fliers.

“What’s a control freak?” Monica said, pausing in her wiggling to unwrap the gum.

“Someone who likes to be the one making decisions,” Carol told her. “Sound familiar?”

Monica considered this. “I like deciding,” she said. She grinned slyly. “I’ll decide to have ice cream for dinner!”

Carol laughed. “There you go! Three control freaks in a plane, and none of us is the pilot.”

“When we get to California, you can decide to have ice cream for dessert,” Maria countered to Monica.

Monica sighed, and smacked her gum loudly.

“A control freak who isn’t the one in control is hard done by,” Carol said to Maria over Monica's head, her voice serious but the corners of her mouth twitching.

“I don’t always hear that complaint,” Maria said sweetly.

The look Carol gave her was scorching, and should not be deployed in public. Maria swallowed and struggled to regain her control.

“It’s worth it,” she said finally. “For three whole days by the Pacific Ocean with you two.”

Monica sighed heavily again. Carol winked. Maria smiled out the plane's window as they slowly moved across the tarmac.

It was definitely worth it. 

~~~~

The cockpit was quiet. Not actually quiet — the jet's engine was roaring to life underneath her, and the usual loud noises of the hangar were all around her.

But still, it was — empty.

Test flights weren't much of an option anymore, and so there hadn't been many opportunities for her to fly. This flight was just helping out with maneuvers for a bunch of fresh-faced cadets. But. It was something.

She unzipped her flight suit just enough to pull out the piece of a dog tag she’d tucked into her pocket.

She curled her fingers around the metal, warm from her body heat, and closed her eyes. Carol’s blinding, toothy smile. The way her hair curled around her ear. The barely-visible scar on her palm from a kitchen knife accident. The strong curve of her back. The scrunch of her nose as she laughed.

It wouldn’t feel right to fly without her.

Maria slid the dog tags back into her suit, next to her heart.

~~~

The quadjet pulled out of the planet’s atmosphere, and Maria hung there for a long weightless moment, her heart in her mouth, and Earth spread out below them, gleaming among stars that were spinning like pinwheels.

She couldn’t think of anything except how much Monica would love this.

Then she turned &mdash and it was Carol next to her, no matter what name she was going by, no matter what shit she'd been through. Maria knew her, that streak of assholery, that bright spark of joy, that goddamned competitive stubbornness, that warm and glowing heart.

And for the first time in the confusing, emotionally whiplashing hours since Carol had shown up in Louisiana, Maria thought that Carol had finally, finally recognized _her_.

And they were flying.

~~~

Three months after Carol came back and then left again, Maria got a call from Fury.

“I have a message for you,” he said. “Don’t ask me how I got it.”

“It’s not from Goose, is it?” Maria said. “I like my eyes, thanks all the same.”

“Ha ha,” Fury said. “You know who it’s from.”

Maria’s heart thudded. “Yeah?” she said.

It was coordinates, no date and time. That was okay. Maria knew when.

She took the Cessna with Monica on Sunday morning, and they flew up above the hazy, early morning mist into the clear blue sky. They landed at the coordinates in a deserted field. 

“She could be right here,” Monica said, scanning the field with her binoculars. She’d really latched onto everything Maria had told her about the ship’s cloaking technology.

She wasn’t there. She showed up three hours later, while Maria and Monica were playing their fifth round of Go Fish.

Late, as usual.

“Hi,” she said, and then laughed as Monica tackled her with a hug. 

When she pulled back, she looked over at Maria, tentative but smiling. "Hi," she said again. 

“Oh my god, Auntie Carol, it’s just as amazing as I remember it,” Monica said, running her hands over the sleek lines of Carol’s spaceship. 

"I didn't know if —" Maria said lowly, and swallowed.

"There was a lot I needed to think about," Carol said. "About — what happened to me. And about I remembered." She paused. "Space is kinda good for that."

"I'll have to take your word for that," Maria said dryly.

“Can we fly her?” Monica demanded.

Carol glanced at Maria. “We better ask your mom that one,” she said.

Monica stared at her expectantly.

“Well, damn, I can’t say no now!” Maria said, but she was laughing.

Carol grinned and reached out to twist her fingers around Maria's. Maria shivered. “You can say anything you need to say,” Carol said, earnestly and sweetly.

Maria swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Happy birthday, control freak,” she said.

Carol’s fingers tightened around hers. “Do you want to see the stars?”

“Yes!” Monica said.

“With you, always,” Maria said. “How about dinner back at our place after?”

Carol's spaceship didn’t have a grumbling roar like an engine. It sounded more like a warm rumbling purr, rich and soft and enveloping. It smelled better than jet planes, too.

“Wheels up!” Monica called.

“Wheels up,” Carol said to her.

Maria grinned, and reached out to take Carol’s hand. And turned her face towards the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: This story includes references to grief and (apparent) death.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Wheels Up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21134912) by [knight_tracer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer)




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